Correlations of neutron multiplicity and gamma multiplicity with fragment mass and total kinetic energy in spontaneous fission of 252Cf

TL;DR

This study investigates how neutron and gamma-ray multiplicities correlate with fragment mass and kinetic energy in the spontaneous fission of 252Cf, revealing complex dependencies and shell effects.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of Mg and ν correlations with fragment mass and TKE, highlighting shell effects and non-linear behaviors.

Findings

Mg and ν show complex correlations for heavy fragments.

Mg(TKE) peaks at 165-170 MeV and deviates from linearity at lower TKE.

Shell effects significantly influence Mg/ν ratios near magic numbers.

Abstract

The dependence of correlations of neutron multiplicity {\nu} and gamma-ray multiplicity Mg in spontaneous fission of 252Cf on fragment mass A* and total kinetic energy TKE has been investigated employing the ratio of Mg/{\nu} and the form of Mg({\nu}). We show for the first time that Mg and {\nu} have a complex correlation for heavy fragment masses, while there is a positive dependence of Mg({\nu}) for light fragment masses and for near-symmetric mass splits. The ratio Mg/{\nu} exhibits strong shell effects for the neutron magic number N = 50 and near the doubly magic number shell closure at Z = 50 and N = 82. The gamma-ray multiplicity Mg has a maximum for TKE = 165-170 MeV. Above 170 MeV Mg(TKE) is approximately linear, while it deviates significantly from a linear dependence at lower TKE. The correlation between the average neutron and gamma-ray multiplicities can be partly reproduced by model calculations.